


Hold the Light Given unto You

by aphelion_orion



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: And So Did Sandalphon 2k19, Fix-It, Let my children be happy, Lucifer Deserved Better 2k19, M/M, Slow Burn, more fluff than angst (eventually), spoilers for WMTSB 000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2019-11-14 20:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18059996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelion_orion/pseuds/aphelion_orion
Summary: I heard you calling... my dearest light.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No, Cygames. Not on my watch. These two deserve better. And this fic spun out of the unexplained "Lucifer keeps appearing in Sandy's ougi" thing. So I explained it. You're welcome. 
> 
> Btw for maximum effect, listen to the [Vienna Teng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bah_1kJySDM) song that I stole my title from.

Life goes on.

It’s a favorite saying of the sky dwellers, one of the first he gets introduced to in the wake of the cataclysm. 

At first it only registers as so much white noise, a verbal shrug that seems to fill the silence after your island nearly plummeted to its doom, after your house got leveled by the righteous anger of a demigod, after your crops got burned by a marauding horde of something-or-other. 

It fits in right alongside other nonsense observations that seem to serve the same purpose, like “Tomorrow is another day” (of course it is, that’s how time works), “No use crying over spilled milk” (why anyone would cry over that, only heaven knows), and “Shit happens” (no shit it does). 

They all annoy him in their own fashion – their triviality, the ease with which they come to people’s lips, the impotence they seem to all but celebrate.

It’s only later, after blood and fire and wings once torn from the backs of his betters given freely, after a loss that plays out over and over, bringing out new shades of grief like an ever-fracturing prism, that he begins to understand.

There is power in acknowledging powerlessness, in giving word to it and having it echoed back by countless others, all equal in their insignificance, all struggling to claw back out of the crater left by the inevitable.

Life goes on, because that is what life does. And you better pick yourself up and follow after it, because as long as you’re alive, that’s just about the only thing you can do.

 

* * *

So he tries. 

Contents himself with taking stock of the carnage of his life, with gathering up shards and trying to figure out if they’re worth gluing back together or better off given over to the trash heap of forgetfulness. Begins to accept the bits and pieces handed to him by others, small gems to stick to the messy crafts project of his heart, and holds it up occasionally for inspection. It’s a right ugly sight, truly, like the patchwork sky dweller homes, holes and cracks filled up not quite as good as new, but for the first time, it’s entirely his to shape.

There’s a mug with his name on it in one of the Grandcypher’s cabinets, the last syllable a barely legible squeeze because an unnamed second artist had to draw a distinctly unflattering portrait on the other side. There’s a garishly patterned quilt that keeps finding its way back to his room, no matter how many times he tries to make it go missing. 

There’s people he’s barely met shoving bean samples into his hands and asking him to “work his magic.” There’s the Singularity, puffing up her cheeks in an exaggerated pout and vowing she’ll get him to call her by name yet. There’s talk of taking him shopping “for summer,” of giving singing lessons to a dragon whose vocal abilities make the meowing of the half dozen ship’s cats seem like the music of the spheres, of maybe turning part of the galley into a coffee bar.

There’s mocha truffles, and chocolate cappuccino cheesecake, and something called coffee liqueur ice cream pie because mortal kitchens turn out to be repositories of both endless genius and madness.

There’s words, filling pages and pages with their inelegance, some to be kept, others to be reduced to ash after writing.

There’s sleepless nights, spent following the trajectory of the one the sky dwellers call the Morning and the Evening Star. 

There’s the mismatch of colors at his back, and on some days, he almost agrees with Lyria that they suit him, and there’s no bitterness in the thought at all.

“Are you happy, Sandalphon?” the Singularity asks one morning, when both of their arms are elbow-deep in soapy water. “Here, with us?”

“I am… content,” he replies, and finds, to his surprise, that he means it.

* * *

It all goes to pieces much faster than it should have.

The Crimson Horizon never sleeps, its malignant forces stirring in ever-new pockets throughout the sky realm. 

“Well, what can you do,” the sky dwellers say, the way they roll up their sleeves a stark contrast to the worry in their eyes, and he tries not to feel touched by the way their faces light up when he echoes the sentiment.

Power from powerlessness.

His strength is not what it once was, especially now that the former owners of his wings have handed the reins to nature and the Supreme Primarch is more a formality to tease him with than a true role. 

Still, there are things he can do.

He can heal the wounds of his feebler comrades, and though his magic wavers with uncertainty from having to use it on others, he feels he must be doing something right when they smile at him through their pain.

He can take the first watch, and the second, and the third, senses sharper and sleep a negligible factor, though they will always come around, bleary-eyed and pale, urging him to let them take their turn.

He can take to the skies to dance among the twisted abominations of the Otherworld, have them tear into his limbs with their poison fangs and claws and come out only slightly the worse for wear, his body and heart lighter than he remembers them ever being–

He’s always been fighting, in one way or another, has spent millennia running on fear and rage and despair, tearing at the walls of Pandemonium and the hides of monsters in its depths, screaming to the Heavens for acknowledgement, turning the pieces of his broken heart into the blades to cut down those who would take his secret joy from him. 

But this is the first time he fights alight with hope and smiles for the sky that his beloved left him, and his diminished powers don’t seem to matter at all.

* * *

He finds himself sprawled against the deck, ears ringing from a cannon blast that went off too close by. 

It takes a moment to ascertain that he’s still mostly there, and that there’s a little red dragon bawling snot and water into his hair.

Lyria is crying too, but quietly, as she helps him sit up and starts digging through her first aid bag for clean gauze. He’s given up protesting that there are better uses for her bandages than a primal who will heal up faster than she can unwrap them.

Well, perhaps not quite. 

There’s a gash in his side that doesn’t seem to want to close properly, flesh refusing to knit itself back together after taking too many of those hate-tipped weapons, and she’s getting blood all over her nice white dress in her pointless attempts to patch him up.

He tells her so, and she grins at him through her tears as if he said something particularly funny.

“It hasn’t been white in a good long while, Sandalphon,” she says softly, and he’s not sure how he can hear her so clearly amidst partial deafness and the screaming chaos of war. 

He blinks, takes in the mess of rusty red and soot black dying the fabric in a pattern of violence, and supposes it hasn’t.

“But that’s not important right now! Stop squirming, I’m almost done.”

He wasn’t, not really, that was just wing number five reattaching itself to his back, but he doesn’t even get to tell her so before the Singularity comes pounding across the deck, armored boots nearly slipping in the slick of oil and less mentionable fluids.

She’s wearing more rags than uniform and has to keep wiping at a fresh cut that’s dripping into her eyes, so he can’t really help the chuckle when she tries to plant herself in front of him the way sky dweller mothers seem fond of doing with unruly children.

“Why are you like this!”

“I don’t know,” he rasps out, not quite able to keep the smile from aching against his bruised face, because lectures on caution and safety coming from her are a new thing that will never not be funny. “Why are you?”

“Oh don’t you dare make this about me, Supreme Nutjob Moronphon!” and he realizes that some of the wetness she’s wiping might not be from the cut after all. “You almost––! And I told you to stay out of range, we can’t keep track of every single winged speck in the sky here!”

“If you’d rather take a direct hit from the slavering fanged monstrosities…” 

“I’d rather not have all the direct hits take _you_!”

She makes to stomp her foot, but something in her right leg twists, sliding away at a painful angle, and he’s up in a flash, steadying her while Lyria carefully worms underneath her arm for support. 

He lets go once they look like they can manage, struck by a fleeting and wholly incongruous impression – the two are nothing alike, and yet, something about the idea that she would rather bear the brunt of war with ship and crew than see him hurt brings to mind a scene he never witnessed, an egg-shaped mass of feathers never seen from the outside, and the one who would rather protect its contents than fight for his own life. 

With slightly more care than he’d like to admit, he plucks the baby dragon from his head and thrusts him into the Singularity’s hastily readied arms.

“You be quiet and sit this round out. I’m up again.”

Happiness may be lost to him, but he’ll be damned if they take contentment away from him too.

* * *

He’s tired, he’s spent. 

There’s lead seeping through his veins, the high-altitude winds keeping him aloft more than his tattered wings.

The Grim Basin is churning below him, a roiling mass of clouds seeking to creep over its edges, stretching greedy crimson fingers towards the sky. 

Above him, the blue – what remains of the blue, mottled as it is with deep red scars that seem to leech the color from their surroundings – above him, the blue falters, shivers. 

The world is holding its breath, staring at the bulging summoning circle stretching end to end over this hell mouth, just waiting for a tidal wave of nightmares to spill forth and bring the sky realm to its knees.

He’s no longer sure where the Grandcypher is, a grain of sand swirling somewhere far below – they are alive, they have to be, and he will have to find the beacon of the Singularity’s power in that maelstrom, the signal that will show him where to aim his last, best shot– 

It’s getting hard to focus. There’s cracks forming along the surface of his core, but this is hardly the first time he was nearly torn apart, and back then, he didn’t have anything but himself riding on his own survival. 

He won’t let it end. He can’t. 

Not like this and not at all, not for them and not for himself, not when he wanted to live, to learn as many things as life would allow so he could share them, the only tribute of worth he would ever have to give, in that quiet, restful place–

But later, later.

Not when there’s so much he hasn’t seen yet, hasn’t done yet, not when leaving would mean abandoning the people he’s sworn to protect, abandoning this world that Lucifer loved so much, that he’s come to love himself–

The power of six wings will soon be beyond him, bones and sinews creaking warningly against his back, threatening to tear, but not yet, not yet–

Lucifer gifted him life in a sky of purest blue, and purest blue will be the memories Sandalphon will gift him in turn.

_So I have decided, and so it shall be._

The flare that arcs its way towards him is as much a relief as it is a knell, as he reaches deep inside himself to call up the last vestiges of the Supreme Primarch’s power, swords flaring to life around him in the colors of the rainbow.

There’s a crack, and a splinter– the blades shivering, wavering like a mirage, and no, no–

And then light, so much light, washing over him inside and out, blooming from his back and from his fingertips with the power of a miniature sun, and in the midst of the sudden dance of pearlescent feathers, that much beloved voice–

_I heard you calling… my dearest light._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy turns out all I needed to return to writing was to get angry as hell at how WMTSB ended. Lucifer deserved better. He deserved the same chance to learn and grow as everyone else did, and he and Sandalphon deserve a lifetime together to explore the sky they both protected and to start working out those communication issues.
> 
> They deserve to take 500 years to figure out that handholding thing.


	2. Chapter 2

For the third time, he finds himself in that sacred place.

He takes a moment with his eyes closed against the blinding white of the transition, just welcoming the other impressions of the space he knows is forming – the soft breeze rustling against a set of curtains, the sun-warmed floorboards, the earthy scent of a perfect roast.

He never knew which of them first shaped this place, whether it was his own desire for comfort or Lucifer’s attempt to make him comfortable, but now it feels as if it might have been both of them, longing so for a place of quiet normalcy, a precious haven unmoored from time where they could safely meet, and simply be.

He keeps his eyes closed a little longer, welcoming the swell of joyful anticipation in his chest and fighting down the parts of it that are too childish, too presumptuous, like the hope to be greeted with a pair of open arms, and the desire to rush forward, to be enfolded in their gentle strength and crowd close, closer, to murmur his regrets because it’s been so very, very long–

_Welcome home._

_I’m home._

With a steadying breath, he opens his eyes, taking in the cozy parlor, the little table set with a pair of delicate, gold-rimmed cups, the steam of a fresh pot of coffee floating lazily upwards, and–

“Lucifer-sama?”

He frowns, takes a cautious step forward to peer into the little garden eternally in bloom, hoping to catch a glimpse of that beloved figure. 

It’s strange, almost impossible to believe that Lucifer would not have noticed his arrival, would not be here to greet him the instant he crossed the threshold, unless–

He’s helpless against the wave of dread crashing over him, a myriad ancient fears resurfacing – that Lucifer is displeased with him, or disappointed, that he’s decided to stop waiting, that Sandalphon came at the wrong moment, that he came at _all_ –

_I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to–_

The sting of nails biting into his palms brings a measure of clarity, enough to summon a flash of anger and face off against that familiar litany.

_No. No more of that. He said– he /said/, and I /believe/._

Releasing a deep, shuddering gasp, he gathers his resolve to walk the other rooms, spinning a handful of better half-truths and trying to ignore how fast they're unraveling before him – that Lucifer might be asleep, or absorbed in a book somewhere, if not in the little library, then perhaps on the first floor, in the bedroom, or outside, on the little balcony, perhaps in the pantry to look for something sweet to go with their coffee, perhaps he left for a walk and they only just missed each other–

_Lucifer-sama?_

_I’m home…_

_I’m right home, so please, won’t you say–_

_Won’t you welcome me home?_

* * *

He wakes to searing pain.

Every nerve in his body is trembling from the force of it, fire and ice coursing through his veins, senses winking in and out of use–

A sense of lying on something hard, then soft, then piercing his body with rusty nails, sight flickering from burning white to deepest black, with flashes of shapes moving over him.

Crying, someone is crying, and–

“It’s not working! Why isn’t it working?!”

“You have to keep trying, please!”

“Lyria, Lyria where did you–“

“I brought help! They’ll know what to do!”

“That’s—“

“Please, please, you know, don’t you?!”

His senses tilt, invert, shutting out the storm outside to focus on the storm within– cracking, breaking, leaking power, leaking self– 

It hurts, it hurts so much, and he wants so badly for his voice to work, to tell the storm outside to quiet down and back away, to run, leave, _anywhere_ –

He knows what’s happening, knows what this is, has seen primals in the lab lose core cohesion from the torture, and there’s no shields here, no barriers, not even a flimsy paper screen–

Hands, hands on his brow, his shoulder, one soothing, the others shaking, sending further jolts of pain running through him, though that’s hardly important now.

_You idiots. You absolute idiots, you– leave, toss me overboard, gun the engines, you can’t fix this, you can’t–!_

He knows what’s coming next, that final crack, the one fissure that will run deep enough to send all the latent potential of his core out of control, make this ship with all its fools go up in a brilliant supernova.

_I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I–_

_All of you–_

_Lucifer-sama–_

The fissure stills. The creaking quiets. 

The pain dulls enough for panic to turn to confusion, then irritation– if the end must come, if he must truly be destined to destroy everything he holds dear, then let it be over quickly– 

–before giving way to an uncomprehending, weightless shock at the thing taking place within him, a formless warmth seeping inside him _from inside him_ , a fierce yet gentle balm spreading out to fill the cracks in his being.

A memory surfaces, from so long ago it might not even be his own, of that same formless warmth compelling parts of him into being, slowly coaxing them to coalesce, to join, to become whole–

_Your name…_

_I will have to think of a name…_

_It’s strange, how my own core will not be still…_

_I suppose this is what mortals mean when they say… I cannot wait to see you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than the last chapter, but I didn't want to leave anybody hanging. (Sorry about disappearing and reappearing btw. I am anxious.)
> 
> TBC, and C&C is very welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

He comes to slowly, senses dragging themselves back to work one by one. There’s a familiar ceiling stretching above him, right down to the spiderweb in the corner, a little round window letting in the pale glow of the moon.

It’s quiet, strangely so, as he struggles to get his limbs to cooperate and finds the reason he doesn’t have full use of his legs is because the Singularity has slumped over them, face slack with something closer to unconsciousness than sleep.

Another glance lets a bundle on the floor take shape in the gloom, locks of blue and soft snores giving some indication of its occupants, and the scene loses some of its dreamlike atmosphere when his sarcasm module grinds back to life.

Idiots, reckless, foolish, loyal idiots, to not at least retire to their own beds, to remain so oblivious as to stay in the room with a dangerously unstable primal–

But then…

Cautiously, ever so cautiously, he commands his senses to turn inward, listening, searching – and rearing back at the impossibility of what he finds, that utterly cohesive, grooveless surface–

“Awake at last, o Supreme Handful?” 

With a slight rustle, Michael unfolds herself from the chair that he failed to notice, movements stiffer and voice rougher than he remembers. For a moment, she looks smaller, too, almost shrunken, before he realizes that is because she isn’t wearing her armor.

“I… I’m…”

His own voice is barely distinguishable from a breath, less out of conscious respect for the trio of exhausted sky dwellers sleeping at his feet and more because there is hardly any of it left. The embarrassment at her seeing him in this state is a fleeting thing because she rises to make her way over, and she’s always been just a little intimidating, armor or no.

She perches on the edge of the bed with the ease of someone who has been doing so for hours, if not days, and there’s no hesitation in the hand that comes to rest against his brow. First cool, then a quick, sharp heat as her power flashes through him – it burns, his tired nerves rejecting the idea of bearing yet more magic, and Michael’s mouth twists remorsefully at his wince.

“Your recklessness seems to know no bounds. You truly outdid yourself this time.”

She withdraws her hand and nods as if satisfied by what she's found, though the concern in her eyes doesn’t seem to lessen. It’s still strange to think that she would worry for him like this.

“What– what happened…?” he rasps, unsure of what to focus on between this foreign show of care and the undeserved loyalty of the sky dweller children, the fact that his room is quiet and the skies feel calm, darkened with the cycle of day-to-night instead of the howling armies of hell. And above all, the fact that he is here to take it all in, trembling and weak but whole, _mended_ , as if primal cores could be fixed by something as trivial as a healing spell.

To his surprise, Michael sighs out something close to a laugh. “You saved His skies.” She pauses, and amends, “ _Your_ skies. Can’t you tell?”

“I’m not sure I know… what’s real at this moment.”

“Ah. Well, I do happen to know a sky dweller remedy for this,” she says, and he only has a split-second to register that something is off about her tone before she flicks him squarely in the forehead.

The unexpectedness of it jars loose a flood of relief so forceful he nearly sinks back against the pillow, that this is it, this is real, the sting of her fingers the proof that he hasn’t failed, hasn’t disappointed, at last has managed to save _someone_ –

Many someones. 

Possibly all the someones.

Perhaps he shouldn’t feel so accomplished at the thought, not when Lucifer undoubtedly did the same thing a hundred, a thousand times over, and without almost losing control of himself, too.

“Is that what you think? That you simply ‘lost control’?” Michael asks, a frown rapidly turning her face into a familiar mask of severity.

“I…” He presses his lips together, trying to leash his thoughts before any more can leap unbidden on his traitorous tongue.

“You… of course, of course you would.” She sighs, heavily, as if her lungs could expel more than air. “We didn’t see, but… Lyria told us. You had _twelve wings_ , Sandalphon.”

A desert wind sweeps through him, scattering whatever thoughts he’s managed to pull together and leaving him gutted in its wake.

“That’s not possible,” his mouth says, even as something stirs in the back of his mind, a memory of being overcome, enveloped, cradled by the most beautiful color in all the skies–

“That wasn’t– that can’t be– how would she even have _seen_ –”

“That, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. You being with us now is proof enough.”

“No. No, that was you, _you_ saved–”

“We didn’t, Sandalphon,” she says softly. “We couldn’t have. You were beyond _any_ power.”

Another memory, a fragment of dream, of rushing through a sun-filled, idyllic little house with the panic of an abandoned child, searching, calling desperately–

“No.” His voice is a high, shivering whisper.

“We were trying to protect these children, when… well. It just stopped.”

“No…”

“As far as I can tell, your core is whole. You may be the only one of us who can ascertain what truly happened, but I think…”

“Don’t say it,” he manages, words having to claw past the vise tightening around his throat, and distantly aware of how his body has started trying to tremble apart at the seams. “Don’t.”

“I’m… truly sorry,” she murmurs, a hand haltingly coming to rest against his back, and this is how the mortal children find him when they wake, shaking in Michael’s arms with the hoarse, ugly sobs of that final, unholy loss.

_I think… whatever power of His was left in you… must have wanted to save you somehow._

* * *

Life goes on, because that’s what life does.

Sandalphon reminds himself of that every morning, and, when it fails to carry him through the day, as often as necessary, sometimes every other hour, to keep himself from simply stopping in his tracks and never moving again.

There are things to do, and a certain pleasurable numbness in throwing himself into them without giving himself time to think – there are linens to wash, and wounded to care for, and hard-to-reach parts of the ship to fix.

If it helps him avoid the worried gazes of the Singularity and Lyria, the muted presence of Vyrn atop his head, or how the former Primarchs have started taking turns checking up on the Grandcypher, then so much the better. 

He knows they’d try to help if he lets them, just as he knows – and they know too – that there is nothing they could say, no way they could understand the enormity of his loss. It’s so much worse than the first time, or even the second, when he was left with kernels of hope to clutch like precious baubles, dreams that offered glimpses of absolution before allowing him to suffer in penance, a drive, a mission, an oath to do everything to bring Him back.

And even when he couldn’t, even when the realization of that vow turned out to be beyond his power, he was still given a chance to do the right thing…

_And you thought that the right thing would be to reject the heaven He was offering you so unconditionally, because you still couldn’t let go of the fantasy of becoming deserving of it. Deserving of /Him/._

It’s enough to make him smile, the sheer, hopeless arrogance of the sentiment, the naivety of that new wish – that if he couldn’t restore Lucifer, allow him to experience for himself the skies that he’d spent millennia protecting, then Sandalphon – stupid, prideful, blindly optimistic Sandalphon – might be able to venture out, and return with something of worth, carrying a treasure trove of experiences.

Memories of hundreds of tiny novelties, of learning to draw shapes in the swirls of coffee foam, of getting dragged around shopping for pointless knickknacks, of sea-salt on his lips and sand between his toes, of having to deposit a particularly persistent cat off his lap and getting a right clawing in response, of diving into the warm southern winds and letting them carry him for miles and miles, lazily, just because…

Of thoughts, both idle and serious, to show that no matter where he was and what he did, it was always, always with one goal in mind–

_To bring back a soil untainted by the sins of the past, upon which we can sow our own memories, and watch them grow._

He has a brief, crippling moment of panic when the sky dwellers declare the ship fixed, and clean, and all the wounded have been discharged from the infirmary, because the idea of having to start picking up his own pieces is just too much to bear. 

How can he, when the misshapen thing he was gluing back together will no longer serve its purpose, when he won’t ever have to worry again about any feeble attempts to make it beautiful, to make it worthy–

It’s a relief to learn he’ll be returning to active duty instead, to be allowed to lose himself in battle once more by tearing through the leftover pockets of Otherworld taint.

“We need you, you hear me, Sandalphon?” the Singularity says sternly as they gird their swords and armor for the fights ahead. “ _We_ need _you_.”

“I hear you,” he says, though it comes out much softer than it once would have, devoid of posturing. It does warm something in him to know she cares, even though he’ll now never get to share the experience of being hounded by this tiny skyfarer woman to be more sociable, to take better care of himself, to please stop making Vyrn think you’re going to turn him into lizard barbecue, he’s really sorry, you know– 

He slams the door on the ruins of his heart, and tilts his chin skyward in a show of confidence she only half buys but smiles at all the same.

"I hear you."

* * *

It happens so terribly fast.

One minute, they’re holding the creatures at bay, and the next, the small village vanguard that insisted on helping the trained skyfarers fight has been overcome, leaving a flock of screeching harpies free to rush for the very spot where Lyria is trying to help the townsfolk evacuate.

He knows the Singularity will have words for him later, will see it as a sign of wasteful foolishness instead of the calculated risk it is–

There’s no guarantee, no way he’ll be able to shield this waifish little girl with just his sword, and truly, what is this life even for anymore when he can’t use it with abandon? 

Teleporting is as easy as breathing, scattering and reforming right behind Lyria, her surprised gasp swallowed by the embrace of his wings. All six of them in place, no harm will come to her, and he’ll be able to pull himself together again later, as he always does, and the Singularity can take care of the rest–

He expects the pain, expects the claws stabbing into his flesh, but what he doesn’t expect is for them to be stabbing from the _inside out_ , or the sweet warmth that comes bubbling up in their wake – surging, cresting, washing over him with a force that shouldn't be this reassuring, this soothing– 

Fingers sliding along his back gently, ever so gently, brushing over his hair and past his cheeks in a way that's enough to make him reach out, to catch them before they can leave—

“Sandalphon, you’re–!”

Almost unwillingly, he opens his eyes (when did he close them?) to meet the boundless shock in Lyria’s stare, gazing up at him, _behind_ him—

There are no claws, he realizes belatedly.

There are no fingers. 

There are only wings, an embrace of pure white pinions stilling time and thought with its soft fluttering caress – and a feeling, vast and nameless and wholly not his, as they slowly pull back—

_—Here, you, always—_

—to once again, impossibly, flood the world with light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, Sandalphon my sweet child, I promise it'll get better soon. When will Lucifer stop being a plot device? Slower than you might want, faster than you think. 
> 
> Feel free to come yell at me about LuciSan. It gives me life.


	4. Chapter 4

Hope is a songbird, the sky dwellers say, a thing that perches in your soul and twitters in jubilant defiance of all you fear is true.

Hope is a vulture, Sandalphon knows, one that periodically returns to feed on what’s left of him, digging for any parts he carelessly left exposed. It sits, always just out of reach, eyeing him for its next chance, the next moment when the glimmers of something better and brighter turn out to be too tempting, the possibility of catching and holding onto them too sweet.

He sits quietly, the bird tearing at his innards, as Lyria holds her hands out, aglow with that solemn ancient magic that has any primal instinctually trembling, though he hardly finds it in himself to care.

There’s sweat beading on her brow, her call tugging at him harder and harder, until she abruptly lets go, and, like a rubber band stretched taut, his core is shivering back into place.

“I’m sorry, Sandalphon, I… I can’t feel anything right now,” she finally says, slumping in a self-deprecating hunch. “It’s like… something was there, and now it isn’t, but it’s not like… it doesn’t feel like it’s _gone_ , either. I can’t really explain it better.”

The vulture barely pauses at her words, too far into its task to be deterred so easily.

He already knows what he felt, back there on that muddy battlefield, would have been able to name that fleeting presence even if he had been blind and deaf, his body and his mind in pieces–

_Lucifer._

Not a mirage, not a rogue fragment of the Supreme One’s power left in him, not with the way those wings were enfolding him so carefully, so completely, welcoming, giving, so terribly, wonderfully giving–

Part of him, the ugliest, most selfish part, keeps howling in rage and denial, beating its fists against the part of him that is scrambling to aid the vulture, to let it gorge itself on the possibilities – because he's been here so many times before, and it has always, always cost him everything–

_But isn't it worth giving everything of yourself to that one impossible dream? Isn't it only right... especially when the dream keeps reaching back for you?_

Slowly letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, he rises, stilling Lyria's apologetic mumbling.

"It's fine. You don't have anything to be sorry for. In fact, I thank you for trying."

"Sandalphon...?" 

If feeding the vulture is good for anything, it’s the birth of half-mad, hare-brained schemes and the wholly mad and entirely idiotic drive to see them through. It’s not confidence and nothing even close to conviction, more like stepping off a precipice with his eyes closed, compelled to fling himself into the void.

At this point, keeping going is not a question of how or why, but an absence of any sensible reason not to.

All he has to do is listen to the fragments of knowledge that remain within him, aspects of the providence of the Supreme Primarch that have been whispering to him all along, if he hadn’t been too wrapped up in himself to listen. 

“I’m... afraid I may have to step out for a bit,” he says eventually, trying to figure out the best way to put into words what he only knows on an instinctual level, the same way he knows that he can fly, or breathe, or speak. 

He lacks Lucifer’s deep understanding, though, the wisdom that came from overseeing evolution for thousands of years, and he will never have his skill, let alone the serenity to pull this off while staying conscious, thinking, feeling, processing the myriad distractions that come from simply having a physical existence.

He can’t expect Lyria to understand, not when he can barely conceive of it himself, but something in her seems to anyway, if the widening of her eyes is any indication.

"A-are you sure?” she asks, gazing up at him uncertainly. “I mean, we could call for Michael and the others..."

He shakes his head. There's nothing the former primarchs will be able to tell him that he can't already guess the answers to. They won't know of any record, let alone proof of a primal beast surviving the loss of their core, not when Sandalphon himself is the one so intimately familiar with the endless, twisted experiments conducted in the Astrals' labs, not when he's witnessed a thousand torturous ends to primals whose cores were shattered, fused, transplanted, or tainted with the blackest venom–

And even if they did, they would certainly never have thought to pry into the affairs of the Supreme One, because seeking to learn about Perfection would have been nothing short of blasphemy, and trying to understand Him, the Embodiment of Light and Right, would have been akin to a peasant seeking to understand the mind of a king.

"But I'm sure they'd come!" Lyria tries again, fingers twisting in her skirt. "I bet they know lots more than we do, and they wouldn't even take long to get here... not that, um, not that you _don’t_ know Him, Sandalphon, just..."

Once upon a time, he would have taken umbrage at that, bristled at the implication that he might not have the first idea – when that is really nothing but the simple truth. 

_I didn't know him either. I didn't know him at all. I didn't even try, just saw what I wanted to see because I couldn't ever fathom..._

_...why he would keep coming to me, calling for me, why he would lower himself to speak to someone even less than a peasant, less than a tool... why he would listen to me with such patience, and tell me of his observations of the world, and ask my opinions, as if I was more than what I was, as if I could /ever be/..._

Back then, he never could have imagined that there was anything Lucifer might have been missing, might have been searching for, let alone that anyone so worthless might be able to help him find it. Nothing he has been or done since then has made him any worthier, let alone deserving, even if he hadn’t been driven by a blaze of grief and rage, and yet...

_And yet._

_And yet, he keeps choosing me, over and over, against all odds and against all reason, against what's good or right or even sane... I still don't understand it, and maybe I never will, but... that doesn't mean I shouldn't try._

Unaware of his web of guilty recollections, Lyria is still talking.

"–just, there's so much that's uncertain, there wouldn't be any harm in waiting just a little longer, right? Until we can be sure? And, I mean, maybe they know of another way, so you wouldn’t have to–”

"I seem to remember a particularly stubborn intruder once telling me that sitting and waiting for things to happen is little better than dying,” he says, surprised to find an easy smile stealing across his lips. “Don't tell me she's getting into the habit of running from her own convictions?"

It's just a little mean to throw her own words back at her like this, but then again, she never stopped the Singularity trying to guilt him with the delicacy of his fingers. 

Lyria ducks her head, perhaps trying to conceal an answering smile that’s just this side of watery. "I guess I just don't want you to get hurt. Again.”

As a remnant from the beginning of the world with the mind of a young human girl, he doesn't have the heart to tell her that to him, hope has always been a scavenger, or that when it comes to Lucifer, after this long, even pain is dear to him.

“Well, if you’d like to placate the Singularity for me, that would aid considerably in my safe return. And I would appreciate it… if, in my absence, I might be in your care.”

“O-of course!” Lyria brightens, squaring her shoulders and nodding wildly. “Don’t worry! I won’t drop you!”

He stiffens. “I… should hope not.”

“And I’ll be sure to keep you warm!”

“You… don’t need to do that.”

“And turn you over twice a day–”

“I’m not an egg, Girl in Blue!”

“–I’ve got this nice box for my necklaces, it’s all padded and everything, and I can keep it locked– though maybe I shouldn’t do that, it’s no good if you end up feeling cramped–”

Rolling his eyes skyward, he lets her nonsense ramblings be the prayer that carries him off as he bids the ether binding his physical form unravel. There’s the brief, horrible sensation of flesh detaching itself from flesh, and the last impression he has is of her hands fumbling to reach for him before his senses, too, are no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to come yell at me about LuciSan it heals me.


	5. Chapter 5

Sky dwellers, he’s been told, don’t remember being born.

They learn of it in stories told by their mothers and fathers, by nosy relatives and overly invested neighbors, embellished fictions designed to tease, to embarrass, to guilt them – bizarrely – into undertaking any number of mundane tasks.

Sandalphon remembers.

Not just hazily, in flashes that are more dream than recollection, ghostly echoes from the dawn of awareness, but like the crispness of a cloudless day, that first taste of a sense of self.

It’s a memory that’s never once dulled in over two thousand years, even though he’s spent so much of that time wishing it would, so convinced it was a lie, a fabrication, an elaborate joke spun from yearning and misinterpretation–

Not wanting it to feel so clear and true, so horribly warm, even though his first sensation was one of biting cold. Of being thrust into the physical world suddenly and without warning, of his hands and knees – _hands and knees?_ – hitting cold, hard tile, of his skin – _skin?!_ – hitting sterile air, of shivering, panting, every breath a fresh shock to his body, scrabbling to cope with the flood of sensation under the dispassionate gazes of his Astral masters.

And then light, bright and strong enough to reduce him to ash without even trying, and yet the sense of a promise that it wouldn’t, not now, not ever...

Eclipsing the cold, the panic, the feeling of helpless exposure, cradling him and burning away any notion of allegiance to those faceless, utterly lightless watchers–

_I welcome you, Sandalphon._

_This world welcomes you._

_It has been wanting to meet you… for a very, very long time._

That memory is his anchor, a beacon to follow in reverse, back to the kindling of that very first ember of consciousness. To cross the threshold into near nonexistence, to retreat inside himself more completely than he ever did before, voluntarily or not.

He’s returned to this stage before, he knows, but it’s an abstract kind of knowledge. Back then, in the shelter of that feathery cocoon, Lucifer’s kindness was what allowed him to retain a sense of self, which crafted a space where he could maintain an illusion of physicality, of sensation and input and independent, conscious thought.

There’s no cradle to protect him now, no comfortable dreamland to hold on to, but he takes the plunge anyway, smashing through the barrier between being and non-being by the nothing but guiding light of that one dearly beloved, shamefully doubted, reaffirmed memory and the frantic beating of a vulture’s wings.

Without either, the mass of contradictions would surely be driving him apart – perceiving time where none can pass, space where none can unfold, phantom senses recording illusory sights and sounds. 

He’s not sure how they arrive at the ideas that they do, insisting on a vista dipped in burnished gold, as vast as the sky itself, bands of haze and sunlight filaments twining every which way, weaving a delicate and ever-shifting web of pure self. 

It’s certainly nothing he could have imagined on his own, with everything so light and beautiful, so calm, not when he can’t think of a time when his heart wasn’t a tempest, full of emotions too violent and hungry to ever be quieted for more than moments at a time.

_Is this, too, because of you? Is this because you imagined me like this, when you gave me life? Or is it because you’re here with me right now, and this is your soul bringing a shine to my own?_

He lets himself sink through these veils of light, some like a fine morning mist, others like brushstroke cirrus, new and transient. 

_Sorry, you had a feather stuck there,_ and fingers shyly reaching for his wings–

 _Thank you, it’s delicious,_ and the clattering of many cups leaving their saucers–

 _I’m starting to think I’ll have to turn into a night owl just to talk to you,_ and an insistent push to make room at the narrowest point of the ship’s bow–

 _The sunset being sheathed, I sit and think of you– the holy city which is your face–_ and the hasty, red-cheeked shredding of a page–

A blink, and they’re gone, carried off like fireflies in a summer breeze, tiny fragments of a life he’s still not sure is his to fully claim. He lets them slip away, these reminders of the waking world, grateful for their presence but all too aware that they won’t be of any help with the task before him.

There is no map, and no road for him to take anyway, not even the passive knowledge of the Supreme Primarch to rely on, only the blurry, feverish jumble of impressions from that fateful day above the Grim Basin.

They rise up without any effort at all, diaphanous and golden just like the others, though their brush is like a slow-moving burn, whispering of agony and panic – even without a body, every atom of him remembers what it felt like to be breaking apart, and just how deep the fissures reached, how close they came to his absolute center, the simple, vital recognition of an “I.” 

The non-space around him shudders, the veils of light trembling uncertainly, and even bodiless as he is, Sandalphon can’t quite suppress the desire to curl up and clutch himself against that existential terror. In here, without actual fists to clench and teeth to grit, without the grounding sensation of physical resistance, a memory is as good as the real thing, vivid and present like no time has passed at all – splintering, disintegrating, his willpower a drop of water to quell the volcano threatening to burst forth and scatter everything like so much ash–

_/Oh, will you just get a grip, you pathetic fucking /child/./_

It’s comforting, in a way, to realize that body or no body, shame and anger are still the blades to pierce the murky tangles of his thoughts, cutting a swath of clarity and certainty – he wasn’t the one who waded into that inferno, with nothing less than his very soul on the line, to shatter the laws of reality by being so foolishly, terribly, sacrificially giving– 

At the time, his consciousness was already too scattered to retain more than the barest glimpses of that healing light, but it’s his core itself that remembers, awash in its gentle insistence for a timeless eternity.

_–You mustn’t break–_

_–You /will/ not break–_

_–My solace, my dearest light, you are /strong/–_

He can’t help but reach for that thought, to try and cup its iridescent shimmer and hold it close, less for any truth and more for the essence contained therein – that care, that fondness, that sincerity, an unshakable conviction despite all evidence to the contrary–

_I’m not worth that, I’ll never be worth any of that–!_

_–Know that I want this world to contain You, who is the world to me–_

–only to nearly stumble and drop it when it unfolds into another thought, like petals opening to reveal a radiant center whose sweetness is almost too much to bear.

_I– why in the skies would you say that, why would you /think/– how, what am I supposed to do with this– you can’t expect me to– you /can’t/–_

_/Hello? Are we back in pathetic fucking child mode already?/_

The fiery slice is more than welcome, cutting through the torrent of near hysteria, the inability to fathom that he could ever mean this much to anyone, let alone– let alone–

_/God, can’t you postpone your tender heart crisis for ten seconds? You’ve got the chance to do something for Him for once in your stupid, pointless life, so will you just get /on/ with it already?!/_

It’s not enough to make him stop reeling, but it’s enough to push him to refocus on the essence of the thought he’s still clutching, rather than the sentiment.

The Supreme Primarch’s power is all around him, suffusing his core with possibility waiting to be made real. He’s always refused to see it as his own, partly so as not to forget the sin that allowed him to inherit it in the first place, but more because he never wanted it to stop feeling like a piece of Lucifer, his grace and gravitas. And now, he knows it is nothing but a pale mirage, a shadow fragment of the real person, rendered distinct and almost easy to ignore by just one glimpse of that sacred, most beautiful of souls.

_Lucifer-sama._

Closing his eyes, he lets go of that tiny grain of stardust. 

He still has no map, and no road to tread on, and yet, the path ahead is clear. There’s only one place Lucifer’s soul could possibly be, the same place he has always been – at the bedrock of Sandalphon’s own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, that one line is shamelessly stolen from an e.e.cummings poem because that kind of worshipful soft eroticism is just the sort of thing Sandalphon would think up on accident and then go defenestrate himself for. (The Grandcypher has a window repair budget just for him, and it's always exhausted.) 
> 
> Also the aesthetic for Sandalphon's core was inspired by the Xibalba nebula in _The Fountain_. Go watch it, it's a gorgeous, utterly confusing movie.
> 
> C&C is much appreciated, as is any and all yelling about LuciSan in general.


	6. Chapter 6

One of the worst aspects of Pandemonium – somewhere above the endless, agonized cacophony echoing around and around in its depths, but slightly below realizing he was actually getting pretty good at tearing out throats with his bare hands – was the complete loss of time.  
  
Sleeping and waking blurring into each other to the point where a distinction between them became both meaningless and downright impossible, dreams and memories blending into thoughts and observations until each was as real, or as unreal, as the other. Flickering, always flickering, between past, present and future in his own mind, until he went from coming to life in the Astral labs to his first few, panicked hours beating against the closing jaws of that hellish cage, to having lived in it for aeons and aeons, in the same nonexistent moment, or hour, or day.  
  
If asked even a little while ago – or a long while, who knows how much time has passed – Sandalphon would have recoiled in horror at the idea of ever experiencing it again, even for a second.  
  
Now, though, here, he finds himself welcoming that sensation, reaching for it, even, as he’s sinking through layers upon layers of his own existence, every conscious and barely conscious moment of more than two millennia of existence rushing past in slow-motion.  
  
Some warm, some cool, some faint enough to barely register and others so blisteringly vivid it’s like plunging into liquid fire, tossing him back into the past while erasing the very concept of one.  
  
Each new moment is present, seemingly stretching into always and reigniting thoughts and feelings from two, two hundred, two thousand years ago as if nothing has changed at all.  
  
Scalpels slicing into his flesh, peeling apart sinew and muscle to discover his inner makings, and no one in these sterile torture chambers would ever think of wasting the kindness of an anaesthetic on a simple primal, let alone one such as him, unique in his complete lack of purpose–  
  
Wild triumph at seizing fistfuls of feathers and yanking, tearing, relishing the rush of power of making them his own – of proving them wrong, of proving everyone wrong, no longer worthless, no longer a spare, but a threat, a menace, serious enough that even He will be forced to pay attention, He will have to step down from his celestial throne, and recognize the error of leaving Sandalphon a mere spare–  
  
Shaking, pressing himself against the walls of that horrible cage and feeling them shift with an abominable will of their own, all while he is left to face the enormity of his sentence – abandoned, more thoroughly than ever before, consigned to be forgotten, and all his cries for forgiveness will do is call more monsters from those horrid, endless depths–  
  
He lets them all pass by, accepts the maelstrom for what it is – bits of history, experienced, witnessed, processed and _done, over,_ just recordings, unnecessary reminders of things he is already well aware of. It’s harder to do with the lighter ones, those that also burn, but with the flame of better times, offering a secret, stolen happiness.  
  
Rushing through the halls, breathless and uncaring of who might see, might punish him for it, his heart too full with the disbelieving joy of being _summoned_ , that the Embodiment of Light should remember his existence and should want to see him, that he might finally be able to do something to be of use–  
  
That beautiful hand, those perfect fingers, lightly coming to rest against his cheek, and– “A skydweller greeting… it looked to be a pleasant thing, if you wouldn’t mind…?” Later, much later, he will come to understand what it means that all sound turned to white noise at that simple touch, that every cell in his body was singing like it had been struck by lightning, not wholly painless but so very sweet, and how much he wanted to have the audacity to lean into that gesture and greedily drink up its warmth–  
  
It’s more difficult to shake off these memories, to keep himself from simply stopping right there, right in this moment or that, to resist the siren call of reliving them over and over, to keep existing in those shards of happiness.  
  
He would have done it too, Sandalphon realizes.  
  
Up until a while ago, perhaps as little as a few days, he would have been… not even tempted, not even aware enough for a struggle between want and will. He would have simply gone stumbling right into the pitfalls of his own heart, starving for those moments of bliss, for a return to innocence.  
  
_//Ignorance, really. Willful ignorance, too, because it was right there, all along, if only you’d taken a moment to look and truly /see/–//_  
  
_I thought I was. I thought I did, I thought I knew the script we were both meant to follow–_  
  
It will be another thing for which he will have to apologize, or perhaps the true thing for which he has to apologize. More than the rebellion, more than the cataclysm, more even than his endless parade of failures, he will have to apologize for holding on to these memories for over two thousand years, hoarding them like precious stones, and never once noticing – truly noticing – Lucifer in any of them.  
  
Lucifer, who would ask for him so softly, his call brushing against Sandalphon’s mind like an invitation rather than the irrefutable summons of a king.  
  
_~Would you come to the gardens, Sandalphon? If it pleases you, I should very much like for us to speak…~_  
  
Lucifer, who would reach for him so hesitantly, as if uncertain of how to move, how to touch, as if expecting him to pull away at the last moment. Lucifer, whose smile would always bloom just a fraction of an instant later than it should have, as if it needed one given in answer to understand that it was alright to come and stay.  
  
Back then, it never would have occurred to Sandalphon to understand these gestures as anything but a display of Lucifer’s kindness, his attempt to make a lowly angel comfortable, rather than as someone making earnest requests, carefully feeling out each interaction, and half-expecting to be refused.  
  
Little glimmers of a god asking, hoping to be treated as a man, and having the misfortune of baring his heart to the most self-absorbed fool in all the skies.  
  
Once more, the gold-tinged world around him ripples, shivering with a pain as ancient as it is new – the pain of certainty, of irrefutably knowing something to be true.  
  
It used to be the awareness that he was nothing, less than nothing, that nothing he said or did or was would ever amount to anything of use to Lucifer. He used to think it might tear him apart during those endless, aimless hours in the labs, more than any of the dispassionate torture at the hands of the scientists – the thought that there was nothing he could give, nothing that someone so strong and radiant could ever want from him, _ever_ –  
  
_But he did– he did, he did, he /did/, if only you’d wanted to /see/–_  
  
Because there had been times when Lucifer had seemed subtly different, moments when his already rare expressions seemed less forthcoming, when the set of his shoulders made his wings look their weight, when the brightness of his eyes seemed dulled as if a cloud had moved in front of the sun.  
  
Times that were immediately blurred, overwritten by Sandalphon’s own selfish worry – he hadn’t done something, had he, to displease…? – and the elation, staggering in its swiftness, when those moments would pass, allowing him to once again drink in the undeserved gift of that warmth, the petal-soft curl of that smile.  
  
Countless moments when he could have done something, could have been someone for Lucifer, and simply never thought to try–  
  
_And you called me your solace, like you truly thought of me as such… but when did I ever… when did I actually offer that to you?_  
  
Just waiting, always waiting, but never moving, never finding the courage, the will to reach out, for years and years and years–  
  
_I’m sorry, I’m sorry I kept trying to enshrine you, and blaming you when you would try to stand still taller upon the altar they all placed you on, when I was just adding to it myself–_  
  
“I’m sorry it took me so long to understand…”  
  
Sandalphon swallows, slow and heavy, to wet the desert whisper of his voice.  
  
“And I’ll always be sorry, I’ll use the rest of forever just to find the words to apologize, but for that, I need to see you. I need to see you, and  talk to you, not just for a few minutes in some weird dream space, but somewhere it’s really, actually you, and really, actually me, and I can– and _you_ can–”  
  
A tear, for opportunities lost and squandered, for all the wistful might-have-beens.  
  
“–Please. Let me see you. So I can tell you… I want to see _you_.”  
  
It’s peak absurdity, of course, he realizes even as the words come tumbling out – half-formed and artless, tripping over themselves in their inability to carry the weight he means for them to hold, and yet… And yet, they seem to reach where formality and grace could never hope to get him, because the next thing he knows, there’s a barest, softest glow reaching towards him from below.  
  
So faint, but purer than anything that could ever belong to his own soul, and Sandalphon stretches out a hand to meet it halfway without hesitation, letting his own world fade away for one of soothing, pearlescent white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. I'm alive. Um. >.> Hi. XD What can I say, depression is a harsh muse.
> 
> Also, just to clarify, this is not me trying to "lay the blame" for the way things went wrong between them at Sandalphon's feet. They're both frankly _awful_ at communicating, and Sandalphon is only just starting to unravel how his own idealization of Lucifer contributed to the mess.
> 
> Anyway, please feed your local writer. C&C is highly appreciated. ^^


	7. Chapter 7

Things return, as they always seem to, to a garden.  
  
For a moment, Sandalphon keeps simply lying where he’s been deposited, ears filled with the sounds of greenery swaying in the wind and flecks of sunlight dancing over his cheeks, struggling to remember when and why he lost consciousness.  
  
There ought to be some kind of rule against such nonsense, losing self-awareness within himself, but then again… His inner workings never did manage to obey what is right or proper or even sensible, he’s not sure why he’s expecting them to start now.  
   
Perhaps it’s because this all seems too much like an act in one of those plays the sky dwellers are so fond of, a scenery carefully crafted to support dramatic declarations of feelings and dew-eyed confessions, and Sandalphon, forced to sit through it, would have to deduct points for a severe lack of originality and plot contrivance.  
  
With his own soul, however, it figures.  
  
It also figures that his heart should lurch like a storm-battered ship when he finally opens his eyes, despite knowing what sight awaits him, the only sight it could possibly be.  
  
The same trees in the same spots, stretching their branches with lazy abandon. The same vines and shrubs, growing so closely together as to resemble a veritable thicket, but without any sense of struggle for space or nutrients. Leaves and buds opening without any urgency, fruit shining with sugary promise despite the season. Tundra mosses and tropical orchids growing side by side with desert roses in complete disregard for climate and altitude.  
  
The same way things always were in Lucifer’s private garden.  
  
It used to be a part of the lab complex, Lucifer told him once, the site of a terrible accident long before either of them was even born, and he was allowed to care for it as he saw fit.  
  
Back then, Sandalphon thought nothing of it, too awed at the idea that Lucifer would share such a treasure with him, and too enamored with the hundreds of new sights and sounds, the joyful chaos of their surroundings. So different from the laboratories and the holding pens, and even the courtyards, where each blade of grass was cut to perfection, each plant a study in geometric proportion.  
  
It never occurred to him that this place, so alive and welcoming, might have itself been an experiment, that Lucifer might have been told to perform the feat of repopulating the scarred and poisoned ground as a test of his abilities, commandeered by the whims of the scientists just like the rest of them.  
  
Amazing, really, that he never managed to put two and two together. That he kept thinking of Lucifer as untouchable, beholden to nothing and no one – inconceivable, that the whole world should not bend its knee to him when Sandalphon was willing to snap himself in half just for the chance to be of service.  
  
_/That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? You wasted all this time scurrying along in his shadow, trying to delight him with inconsequential inanities, when you should have been walking ahead, clearing a path as His Sword and Shield—/_  
  
_…But would he have wanted that…?_  
  
_/Who cares? Who cares, as long as he was truly safe, as long as they would quail before the thought of ever touching Him, or anything that was His–! And to think, you almost had it that one time, that *one* time…/_  
  
A half-forgotten incident from the earliest days of his existence, of lying on an operating table and trying to obey the instruction to regrow the major muscles in his arms and legs, and the idle conversation of the researchers on watch, how someone really ought to do something about that east-wing jungle already, its weeds were starting to infest the actual gardens, best to raze the whole lot, really—  
  
Even the later shame hadn’t been quite deep enough to erase the tiny spark of pleasure at the shock on their faces when he’d come off the table screaming and cursing, and managed to trash half the observation bay before they found a way  to knock him out.  
  
He’d paid for it dearly, of course, wings broken into so many pieces he thought they might never knit themselves back together again, and felt quite foolish afterwards– how stupid of him, how downright blasphemous to believe even for a second that these dim-witted butchers would have ever stood a chance of harming that place of life and light – so much so that he never even thought to question who they might have been referring to with their sneering about “Lucilius’s pet”.  
  
_/You could have changed it all, right then and there, if only you hadn’t been so wrapped up in playing at worship and servitude. And perhaps you would have both  still been slaves, in the end, but they wouldn’t have dared—/_  
  
_Enough._  
  
_/—honestly, how much do you think they took away from Him, material and otherwise, while you were busy wallowing in self-pity…?/_  
  
_I said, *enough*!_  
  
With a growl, Sandalphon tears himself away from the endless litany of his own past. There will be time for all of it, time to grapple, to hate himself, to reexamine, to grope for the words to shape the beginning of an apology, but not right now, not when he is in the exact place he was striving to reach.  
  
He might not have expected to see it again outside of dreams, this place where he spent his dearest, more sweet than bitter hours, but the more he considers it, the more it makes sense that this should be the place where they might reunite, as they so often did.  
  
The wind rises, carrying with it the scent of winter turning into spring, of a hundred tiny flowers bursting into bloom after long, dark months spent beneath the frost.  
  
The scent of rebirth, of new beginnings, but more than that, what has Sandalphon taking off at a run is the feeling contained therein, that whisper-quiet promise.  
  
_Not might._ _Will._

 

* * *

  
  
There were a few occasions when Sandalphon didn’t manage to get to the gardens ahead of time. A handful of times when he would burst into that sheltered clearing, frazzled and disheveled, only to find the little table already set for two, and Lucifer only a few paces away, engaged in a quiet sort of communion with the plants.  
  
Face tilted into the slight breeze, eyes half-closed as if listening to a song only he could hear, as the surrounding greenery seemed to be stretching towards him, leaves and buds kissing his wings and fingertips in an unselfconscious greeting of their protector and life-giver.  
  
A sight not seen in over two thousand years, and yet, it manages to knock the breath out of him even harder than it did on the first day, when the idea that he might never get to see it again was merely the self-centered fear that he might inadvertently do something to lose Lucifer’s favor instead of bitterest reality.  
  
How absurd, how fitting that his voice should choose to leave him too, unable to form even a single sound – and yet, Lucifer turns anyway, the plants pulling back as if aware their time had come and gone, his eyes lighting up with a glow that seemed to extend to his entire being, six white wings rising in a greeting Sandalphon himself never dared return before, too awestruck and nowhere near confident enough to match this dazzling welcome with a display of his own plain brown plumes.  
  
It’s shock that’s keeping them tucked away now, staring spellbound at the scene before him, heart seizing with the realization that although he’d been wishing, hoping, praying all the while –  that even with all the encouragement he had received, all the evidence to the contrary, a part of him hadn’t really dared believe, had been too afraid of what he might not find.  
  
“Sandalphon.”  
  
Soft as a sigh but clear as a silver bell, each syllable at the exact frequency to send happy shivers down his spine – and how did he ever manage to convince himself that this was the sound of indifference? How was he able to take that voice, his own name on those lips, and ascribe its tender cadence to simple wishful thinking?  
  
He has no idea how he manages to keep standing, let alone moving forward, leaden feet carrying him into the clearing like the dazed and graceless idiot he is.  
  
“You’re here.”  
  
“I— I am?”  
  
And, a smile? He watches in awe as it blooms, unfurling like the rarest and most precious of flowers – its curl as gentle and quiet as always, but with eyes the color of clear midday skies to match, free of the shadows of pain and regret.  
  
_You never should have looked like that, nothing should *ever* make you look like that, least of all *me*—_  
  
It’s enough to make him straighten up a little, to try and carry himself with at least some of the gravity the situation deserves, even though there is a cannonball lodged in his stomach and his throat still seems determined to strangle the breath out of him.  
  
“…I am.” Strange, that his mouth should feel so dry, when his voice sounds just this shy of wet. “Lucifer-sama— you… I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took me so long, I’m sorry I didn’t– I didn’t understand, I didn’t realize— I just wanted to— but I never thought about what you— I— Damn it, I—"  
  
“Sandalphon. Look at me.” Knuckles grazing his cheek as if to wipe away the tears that haven’t fallen, and while he can’t quite bring himself to meet those eyes again, he can’t stop himself from leaning into that touch, either.  
  
Part of him is horrified at his own boldness, this shameless show of enjoyment, when he was always so careful before, on those rare occasions, to hold still and allow Lucifer to do as he wished. It had been so easy, too, stunned as he had been by the unexpected contact, the feather-light electric sweetness that came as much from the touch itself as the notion that Lucifer, in his kindness, would deign to bestow it upon him—  
  
No, not deign. Never deign, especially not with the way that hand is now turning, offering an open palm to lean his cheek against — and then curling in his hair, gently guiding him forward until he is resting against a mix of cool and warmth.  
  
Armor and unguarded skin, shocking in their closeness, wings rising to gently envelop him in their pearlescent shine, and it takes all he has not to crowd inappropriately close, trembling from the sensation as much as the idea that for all his failures, all his sins, all his selfish, pointless cruelty, this should be his reward—  
  
“It is all right, Sandalphon.”  
  
“I—"  
  
“You’re here now. Everything is all right.”  
  
“Don’t— don’t say that, not when— not when I took so long, when I never thought—“  
  
_That I would get another chance, that you could find me again, that you would risk even your very soul for my sake—_  
  
A hum, as thoughtful as it is soothing. “Know that my faith in you never wavered.”  
  
He can’t help the sound that escapes him, partway between a laugh and a sob, reeling too hard at the idea of being depended on, believed in, despite everything—  
  
“You did well, Sandalphon. You did so well.”  
  
The words are like a healing balm, spreading over a wound so old he’d long since thought it scar tissue, capable of little more than a dull ache. It shouldn’t hurt this much, nor should it feel this good to have it soothed, mended by the confirmation that he has at last managed to do the right thing, to do right by Lucifer.  
  
“Was it difficult?”  
  
“You— was it difficult. Was it difficult, you— _you—_ I can’t even— you have no idea, none at _all—_ “  
  
Another sound that can’t decide what it wants to be, but settling on something high-pitched and slightly hysterical. No doubt he looks like a right fool, directing his protests into Lucifer’s shoulder like this – and there will be plenty of time to have conniptions over _that_ idea later — but right now, it’s the best he can manage. The only thing he can manage, really.  
  
“And who are you to say that, anyway? Don’t you realize what could have happened…?! How can you just say it’s alright, when you could have— you could have been—"  
  
Torn apart, disintegrated, obliterated more thoroughly than even his murderers could have managed, but Sandalphon finds himself choking on the words, holding back the terror of reality — of Lucifer, robbed of his body and his core, vulnerable beyond all measure, and how close Sandalphon had come to snuffing out his soul entirely by accident, without ever even knowing what he’d done.  
  
“You could have been... hurt, and I’m not— are you hurt? Are you alright?”  
  
It’s an effort to pull back, to deny himself this newfound closeness enough to study Lucifer’s face for any sign of discomfort. He’d feel stupid to insist on asking in spite of so much reassurance, except that he’s never done so before, never thought it might be something he should do, needed to do.  
  
All that meets him, though, is that smile. “All is well, Sandalphon.”  
  
“But are you?”  
  
“Of course.” A slight headshake, as if Lucifer is downright bemused by the question. “You’re here. How could I not be?”  
  
For a long moment, Sandalphon can’t do anything but stare. Mouth open on the words that won’t come forward, muscles slack with shock, his stupid heart awash with the incandescent joy of being wanted, needed, treasured like this, of being able to do for Lucifer what Lucifer has always done for him just by existing.  
  
For a long, drawn-out, utterly disgraceful moment, comprehension eludes him, too overwhelmed by all this easy affection, the heart-stopping beauty of that beatific face—  
  
Which is exactly the problem.  
  
He knows now, has seen with eyes unclouded for the first time in his life what lay beyond the boundaries set by his own worship, his own need to cling to a transcendent vision. It used to sustain him during all the dreary, hopeless days of his existence, used to chase away the pain and ugliness and allow him, for brief, precious moments, to feel like something better, something of worth, simply by being allowed to bask in Lucifer’s radiant perfection.  
  
_You weren’t perfect, though. You were lonely, and I made you more lonely every time I refused to walk beside you, every time I bowed harder when you asked me to raise my head, every time I was too much of a coward to reach for you as you reached for me, every time I wouldn’t press when you told me—_  
  
_You told me—_  
  
_—You never told me you were alright._  
  
_When you grew quiet, when your gaze went distant, those few times I managed to work up the courage to ask you, you would always say it was nothing, you’d always tell me not to be troubled, that there was no need for concern—_  
  
_And I thought you meant— I thought you meant you truly didn’t *need* it, when it was just that you couldn’t lie—_  
  
_—You couldn’t lie and tell me you were alright._  
  
“You’re… not Lucifer-sama, are you.”  
  
The words are out of his mouth before he even knows what he’s saying, unreal, ludicrous — but far less ludicrous than the idea of Lucifer, who had his body stolen and his core violated so deeply it could never again house his essence; Lucifer, who died alone, uncertain of whether his last words ever managed to reach anyone, convinced it was only right to pay with his own life for the sin of a simple wish; Lucifer, who had risked his last fragile remnants to save the very person who made all that tragedy possible in the first place — the idea of _that_ Lucifer being able to say, with conviction and without hesitation, that he was alright.  
  
_You weren’t alright, you weren’t alright when I last saw you, and I didn't manage to see it past my own feelings—_  
  
He takes a step back, the impostor’s hand slipping from his cheek without resistance, smile fading, and part of him, the stupid part, almost wants to mourn the loss.  
  
“Who are you.”  
  
The impostor merely shakes his head, the unbearable look of fondness in his eyes spelling out his answer more clearly than any words.  
  
_“Don’t you already know?”_  
  
“I don’t—”  
  
But even as he makes to protest, Sandalphon realizes that it’s true. He knows this impostor, this apparition — knows him from endless, lonely hours of useless waiting, watching from on high as primal beast after primal beast would leave the Astral labs to begin their duties elsewhere in the world, watching as his bright-winged counterparts took to the skies with purpose, heart aching with the wish to join them, to know what it was like to live for a reason, and hoping, dreaming—  
  
Dreaming of the day he would return from an assignment of his very own, and rush to deliver his report, so that he might receive that most precious reward — a contented smile to confirm his worth, a word of praise to acknowledge his usefulness, perhaps even, in his more daring fancies, a hand resting upon the crown of his head, expressing pride and satisfaction rather than mere kindness—  
  
An audacious fantasy to retreat into whenever his doubts became too heavy, the embodiment of all his childish yearning, and he fell for it like an idiot, as if he’d learned nothing at all, as if he hadn’t just promised, hadn’t just _sworn_ —  
  
The creation shifts, once again extending a hand to cup his cheek, once again offering comfort and understanding where none are deserved. It takes more effort than it should to reach up and remove that touch, as warm as the real thing, supported by the memory of a thousand tiny gestures both real and imagined.  
  
“You don’t…” Clenching his fists, Sandalphon swallows past the vise around his throat. “You don’t have to do that anymore. I’ll be… well, I won’t be okay, but it wouldn’t be right if I were, now would it?”  
  
The creation nods, though whether it’s in understanding or agreement, he can’t tell.  
  
“Thank you. Could you just. I… I need to think, and I can’t do that when you’re— You’re entirely too much like Him for me to concentrate.”  
  
Perhaps it’s cowardly to do, but if he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch it acquiesce, doesn’t have to watch it shimmer and disperse into a thousand fireflies, then, well, there’s no longer anyone here to judge him for it.  
  
So he simply keeps standing in the small clearing filled with wildflowers, in this space where everything speaks of Lucifer, feels like Lucifer, letting the spring breeze taunt him with its promise, his mind at last truly and completely blank—  
  
Until the silence is shattered by the ugly, jarring sound of laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Many thanks to the lovely Ein for all your support and input. <3
> 
> 2) Three guesses as to who showed up at the end there, and the first two don't count. XD
> 
> 3) Lucifer's an actual Disney princess fight me. (Don't fight me, I'm squishy). 
> 
> 4) You know that little fluff-and-wingstretch thing that birds do when they're greeting each other? Yep, that one.
> 
> 5) C&C is most welcome and appreciated.


End file.
